


The Year of Firsts

by Darkest_Ambitions



Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: Fix-It of Sorts, Minor Character Death, More Like Mentions of Characters who are Already Dead, Post Battle of Rose Creek, technically AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-15
Updated: 2016-10-15
Packaged: 2018-08-22 14:28:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8288978
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darkest_Ambitions/pseuds/Darkest_Ambitions
Summary: The Battle of Rose Creek sees many deaths, but Joshua Faraday is not one of them.  Surviving the near massacre is not without consequences.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I saw Magnificent Seven and have had so many feelings about it. (So many...) This idea immediately presented itself and I obsessively wrote it when I should have been doing other things, like homework. I have more ideas about other characters, but I thought I would start with Faraday. Thanks for reading. Hope you enjoy!

The first time Faraday wakes up, all he knows is pain. His ears ring. _Something’s_ exploded, he thinks. _Oh right_ , he remembers, _me_. He lies in the grass of the open field, staring up at a blue sky he didn’t think he would see again. The pain overtakes him. He blacks out.

The next time he awakens, the pain is still there, but it is second to the heat. He is on fire. Everything is burning. He thinks he screams, begs someone to put the fire out.

When he is once more pulled from the darkness, he feels hung over. His body aches and his head hurts, but there’s that fuzzy sensation. He cracks an eye open. Dim light filters into a blurry room he thinks he may recognize. He tries to move his right arm to wipe at his vision, to clear his sight. Nothing responds. Slowly he turns his head, teeth gritted against pain, eyes squeezed shut as if to ward away the deep ache. He breathes shallowly, panting, air squeezing past teeth. When he opens his eyes, he thinks maybe it would have been better to never have woken up at all.

His arm is gone.

He screams.

* * *

 

Faraday lays propped up in bed, faded blue cotton sheet pulled to his waist. He gazes into space, eyes glazed. He is lost to the world when Sam comes in.

“You’re awake,” Sam says, a smile on his lips. “Glad to see it.” Faraday’s eyes refocus and he watches Sam take a seat beside the bed, perching on a stool.

“Why?” he asks dully, voice rough from disuse. A glass of water sits on a simple wooden nightstand to Faraday’s right. It is untouched.

“You’ll be up and moving soon. Doctor says you’re healing well.” Faraday stares back at Sam. He says nothing more as Sam speaks to him, telling him of Rose Creek as it is rebuilt. Rose Creek has risen from the ashes of the fight with Bogue. Faraday is still on the battlefield, lying on his back, bleeding out, wishing he was dead.

* * *

 

The first time he tries to feed himself, half the bowl ends up in his lap. His left hand is uncooperative and awkward, something he is not familiar with to this extent. Shooting left handed was difficult, but never a true problem. Rather, it was something he had trained to death, until it was as natural to draw with the left as it was with the right. It wasn’t preferred, but a man’s got to do what it takes to survive. Eating is a whole different story. He throws the spoon across the room in his fury. It hits the doorframe with a soft thud. He eats less after that. He can’t seem to find the motivation to try.

The first time he attempts to walk into another room he clips a wall with the shoulder of his now missing right arm. He is off balance, one side a little heavier than the other. The pain is sharp and immediate. It leaves him gasping, clutching the stub of his upper arm, where his arm now ends just past the shoulder joint. He remains in the bedroom much of the time now, tucked away from the rest of the world.

* * *

 

Vasquez and Sam come to visit him often, coaxing him to eat, to drink, to talk. He remains mostly silent. He doesn’t feel talkative. No snappy one-liners or snarky comebacks. Vasquez stomps around, insulting him in Spanish, trying to get a rise out of him. Sam speaks to him of the battle. He doesn’t reply.

The doctor stops by regularly, to check the bandages that wrap his chest and what’s left of his arm; to check the stitches in his thigh and over his brow; to make sure infection hasn’t set in. He pokes and prods Faraday until the young man wants to the slaps the doctor’s hands away.

“Lucky ya’ didn’t lose the leg, too,” the doctor says, nodding at the healing limb, stitches and bandages seeming to hold the leg together. “Lucky to be alive really,” the doctor continues.

Faraday isn’t sure he’s the lucky one.

* * *

 

It has been months since the battle, the town’s wounds have healed. So have Faraday’s. The stitches have been out for weeks, the new flesh shiny and pink, and the bandages are long gone. Physically, he looks fine, minus one right arm.

He sits on the bed, staring into space, the sounds of the town’s nightlife faintly reaching his ears. Sleep claws at him. He’s tired. Then again, he’s always tired. But the nightmares are worse than the sleepless nights and the exhausted days. He is just starting to nod off despite his attempts not to when Vasquez walks in, holding a number of bits and pieces. (The outlaw had combed the field until he found them—Ethel miraculously in one piece, Maria in two. Carefully, he sets both guns down on the bed side table.) Faraday tracks Vasquez’s hands, but refuses to look directly at the guns.

“Come on guero,” Vasquez says, a note of pleading in his voice. He sits on the edge of the bed, offering his last gift—a worn deck of cards. Faraday glances briefly at it, fingers twitching, but he doesn’t take them. Vazquez huffs in annoyance.

“Pendejo,” he mutters. “Stop moping. Come outside. Join us for whiskey. Play a hand.” Shaking his head, Faraday looks away.

“Fine!” his companion yells, throwing the cards at him. “Rot here. I thought you were someone different.” A few cards strike Faraday, the rest flutter to the bed and floor. Reaching out, Faraday warily picks up the Jack of hearts where it has floated to sit on his chest. As Vasquez moves to storm out he is stopped by a broken note.

“I’m not…” Faraday begins before trailing off. Vasquez turns to look at the whiskey drinking, gun slinging, gambling Irishman he came to know almost a half a year ago and is surprised to see eyes brightened by unshed tears. Even shot in the side, this man had never cried before him.

Faraday’s voice cracks as he begins again: “I’m not…I’m not that man anymore. I’m not a gunslinger. I’m not a gambler. I’m no magician. I am a one armed cripple.” He leans forward, hiding his face in his left hand. “Not good for much,” he says quietly. Vasquez carefully moves to reseat himself.

“Oh guero,” he sighs, placing his hand on Faraday’s shoulder.

A few mornings later, Faraday makes his first appearance in the saloon, settling into a chair beside Vasquez. He’s out of breath and the buttons on his vest are mismatched, but he is there.

“Deal me in,” he grumbles, beckoning to the barkeep for a drink. Sam and Vasquez exchange looks, elation clear on their faces.

Within the month Faraday does his first magic trick. Vasquez nearly begs to pick the card. It isn’t very smooth, cutting the deck one handed is a struggle, but a convenient lovely lady makes a great assistant to hold the deck.

* * *

 

The first time Faraday rides Jack, his beautiful horse that now belongs solely to him, it’s getting on to him that’s the problem. He’s still a little off kilter, and without the arm he is forced to mount on the wrong side. Jack shies away at first, but a few carrots later he is happy to stand still. Vasquez stands at the horse’s head and monitors each movement with care. Jack doesn’t threaten to spill the man on his back and is easily guided around a larger pen.

(When Faraday first visited the coral where Jack resides, the bay had greeted him enthusiastically, affectionately snuffling at his hair and lipping his clothes. Vasquez volunteers to saddle the stallion almost too quickly when Faraday mentions he would like to ride.)

Soon enough he is galloping across the plains that surround the city, though he careful to avoid the field where he once charged to his death. Too many thoughts crowd his head there.

It is freeing to ride—the wind rushing past him, sun beating down on his back, and the feeling of Jack beneath him. It can be easy to forget the world in such a place. To forget the struggles of now. To forget the worries of tomorrow.

* * *

 

The first time he picks up Ethel, he nearly drops her. Pain floods the limb that is no longer there. He can feel where the bullets ripped into his body on his charge toward the Gatling gun; the shrapnel that tore him apart as the world exploded. Sweat drips down his face, rivulets running down his spine. He stumbles slightly and braces against a wall, breathing deeply to calm his racing heart.

He wanders out a few nights later, sneaking like he used to when he was trying to get out of town without too much fuss. A simple gun belt is slung over his left shoulder, falling diagonally to his right hip. He heads to the coral and leads Jack out, whispering to the stallion. Faraday guides him out of town, before mounting with a semi-graceful swing from a large rock he scrambles onto. Slowly and silently, he rides out, heading to the far side of the pond where he first watched Emma Cullen shoot.

The moon is high and full, illuminating the log breaking the water’s surface. He approaches the bank warily, unsure of what to do with himself. He hasn’t shot in ages. He can shoot left handed, in his gut he knows it, but there’s something niggling at the back of his mind.

 _I’m scared_ , he realizes with a start. Scared to see the results, the possible failure; to see he will fail at this just as he has with so many other things—dressing, eating, walking. He kicks at the dirt before slipping the belt over his left shoulder so that it settles on his hips. He fiddles with it, rearranging the angle to allow for a better draw. His hand settles on the grip, fingers twitching, but he cannot seem to draw the pistol.

“Come on, Faraday,” he growls at himself. His body is a rope of tension, hand balling into a fist. “Just shoot the damn thing! Come on! Take the damn shot!” He is suddenly struck by the memory of goading Robicheaux to shoot, to show off his skills when it was clear he was struggling; needling him, poking and prodding him, until he’d taken the rifle and fired six clean shots. That man had been braver than he knew himself to be.

“I’m the real coward,” Faraday says softly, the tension leaving his body all at once. He can see the moment when Goodnight rapid fired six shots into the head of the dummy, blowing it clean off. He can hear the shots picking off his pursuers as he charged toward the gun ripping the town apart. He’d never had a chance to thank the two men who had gifted him that opportunity, to reach the wagon and weapon, to stop the massacre.

“God,” he exhales. Tentatively he pulls Ethel from the holster, raising her to aim at the log. In one fluid movement he cocks it and fires, the shot splintering the wood. It echoes in the cool night air. He fires four more shots, each hitting his intended target. He holsters the pistol and then with a joyous whoop, throws his arm into the air. _I’ve still got it_ , he celebrates.

* * *

 

It is a few days shy of a year since the Battle of Rose Creek, the first time Faraday visits their graves. He had resolved that he would walk their unaided, and it had taken months to build up the strength to do it. He sits there, winded, gazing at three wooden crosses that bare the names of his comrades in arms. A small red pinwheel guards the grave of Jack Horne, spinning lazily in the breeze. Goodnight and Billy’s practically touch, the closeness between the two clear in death as it was in life.

Faraday pulls the whiskey bottle from the inside pocket of his vest. With a now practiced movement, he pops the top with his teeth. Carefully, he pours some at the base of each grave, offering a short prayer for each. He sits there for hours, enjoying the silence, sharing the bottle of golden liquor. Eventually he stands, pushing himself off the grand a little more gracefully than a week ago, and even more graceful and self -assured than a month ago. He stills for a moment before reaching out and caressing the three markers.

“One day we will meet again. Maybe not as soon as I thought,” he says. “But one day.” With a small smile on his lips he turns and strolls back to Rose Creek, for the first time feeling as if he can rise from the ashes.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments are always welcome.


End file.
